Weather Report's 'Mysterious Traveller' Turns Fifty

While doing some research on an unrelated subject I stumbled across the fact that Weather Report's Mysterious Traveller (the group deliberately chose the British spelling) was celebrating the 50th anniversary of its release. While Mysterious Traveller is only my second favorite WR album (number one goes to Black Market) it holds a special place for me because it was the first record by the band that I heard. It had a magical quality back then that held me spellbound, and listening to it now, it retains much of that mystical sheen. It is somewhat like American Kosmische.

The opener, "Nubian Sundance" was an amazing thing to hear from an instrumental band in 1974. It opens with a celebratory blast followed by a victorious roaring crowd, sounding for all the world like a huge rock show or a soccer stadium. Was it recorded live, you found yourself wondering, but no. The crowd noises are too perfectly placed. But the energy that they create, seeming to react to the song's opening gambit, is priceless. It made Weather Report something else again.

Then there are the voices. We hear voices but they are disembodied and we can't discern what they are saying. But it's not like other fusion records of the time, nor like previous Weather Report albums. It's more like a high energy version of the wordless vocal numbers that Earth Wind and Fire used to do, or  'Sun Goddess' the track that EWF collaborated on with Ramsey Lewis, which was also released in 1974.

The track is not, of course, a live track. It was improvised and composed in Joe Zawinul's home studio, then recorded in the studio with two drummers, two percussionists, and the triumvirate of founding Weather Report members Zawinul, Wayne Shorter, and Miroslav Vitous. It follows a style that will become familiar over time with Zawinul's compositions--a groove is slowly developed and floats its way around and through the various musicians, picking up steam as it goes until it has all the force of any rock and roll band. Yet the musicianship is much higher and the playing ultimately more interesting. They aren't noodling--Shorter's solos are so filled with melodic beauty, many could serve as inspiration for full-fledged compositions of their own.

Just as Zawinul's composition 'Pharaoh's Dance' helped define the aura of Miles Davis' landmark Bitches Brew, so 'Nubian Sun Dance' creates an otherworldly sense here. We may be in the future, or the past, or outer space, but we are definitely not in Kansas anymore. Zawinul really was a precursor to what became 'world music' and later just a fusion of cultures.

As "American Tango" unfolds, it becomes clear that Zawinul is coming into his own instrumentally as well. He really leans into the synthesizers on Mysterious Traveller, committing fully to creating a defining sound for the band. He had technicians who rebuilt, rewired, and otherwise monkeyed with his factory produced synths, helping him to recreate sounds that other artists found difficult to reproduce. The thing I have always admired about Joe Zawinul is that he sought to create a new sonic language for synthesizers and electric keyboards, and was not merely interested in using them to mimic other instruments or try to recreate the sound of a band.

"Cucumber Slumber" has the celebrated Alphonso Johnson bass line that was sampled without permission by MC 900ft Jesus on the track “Truth Is Out Of Style”, but more than that, Wayne Shorter plays some really nice stuff on this track. I really despise the fact that a lot of 'jazzers' were down on Wayne for playing a more minimal, or perhaps more correctly, a more low key style than he had when playing with Miles Davis. I mean, people move on, Miles moved on, and Wayne found a really good niche with WR, he had a compositional outlet, and he played damn well on these records and in live performances. You don't have to make his WR work your favorite, but if you can't listen and see what he was doing, then you don't have ears.

That brings us to Side Two and the Wayne Shorter composed title track. The title refers to the comet Kahoutek, hearkening back to the cover painting of a comet over Madagascar by Helmut Wimmer. The two drummers are set up playing different patterns--Skip Haden played swing accents against Ishmael Wilburn's straight funk/rock beat. According to Alphonso Johnson, "it was too complicated to explain to get one drummer to play that way."

"Blackthorn Rose" is a Shorter-composed duet between his soprano and Zawinul's acoustic piano. It's a track that echoes the first couple of WR albums, where quiet moments of exploration share space with more electric-oriented tunes. Again, Shorter is playing wonderfully here.

"Scarlet Woman" originated off of something Alphonso Johnson had written--the initial descending melodic line. Zawinul took this idea, harmonized it and created an arrangement, adding a bridge. Shorter plays one of his best recorded solos with Weather Report on the track. Zawinul saw the piece as related to a book by Aleister Crowley that he was reading. "Scarlet Woman" comes form the title that Crowley gave to his wife. The windy sound effects, reminiscent of RIck Wakeman's effects on "South Side of the Sky" are meant to evoke a scene of Crowley and is wife in the Himalayan mountains.

The final track, "Jungle Book" was composed and recorded at Zawinul's home studio, with the keyboard player also contributing overdubbed kalimba, guitar, sitar, tabla, and other instruments in what is nearly a solo piece. In fact, if you played this piece for me out of the blue I would probably not have recognized that it was a Weather Report track at all. Listening to it today, I was reminded both of Oregon and of Pat Metheny with Lyle Mays.

Regarding the departure of founding WR bassist Miroslav Vitous, it was part of the revolving pattern of the band's personnel changes that continued throughout their most creative period. The group becomes a corporate entity, with Shorter and Zawinul at the helm, and they attract and hire new talent as needed. Alphonso Johnson was needed for the direction the band was moving in, but they didn't abandon some of the more explorative moments. By the next record Ndugu Chancler had moved into the drum chair, and the changes continued right through Black Market and Heavy Weather. In many ways, the group's creative longevity was fueled by these consistent shakeups in the band.

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